More foods from Japan

Here are some more tasty and affordable foods that I stumbled on in Japan:

 That's cow over rice with stewed onions.  It costs little under $4.  It's one of those restaurants where you have to buy the ticket first after you give it to the chef.  There's one guy working there at the time.  He was the chef, server, and the greeter all at once.  Is that efficiency or what?

Cherry blossoms - 2013

Here are some sakura blossoms this year.  Some of the flowers were more intense than others.  

 
Japan is always very clean.  This gets me every time I visit.  For such a high population density, it is exceptionally clean.  There is over 10 Million people living in Tokyo, and nowhere does it get as bad as some of the things I've seen in New York. 

Rule of Horror & Comedy

Here is an interesting rule I discovered about movies:

A bad horror movie can be funny, but a bad comedy can never be scary. 

For example, "Alone in the Dark" with Terra Reid was an awful horror movie.  It fails in every way as a horror film, yet some how manages to succeed on a comedic level. It's funny, but on an unintentional level.  This provides a kind of "Plan B" for horror movies.  I guarantee if you watch Alone in the Dark as a comedy movie, it totally works.

She's supposed to be a brilliant scientist in "Alone in the Dark"  Funny, amirite?

Myth - dining out in Japan is expensive

So, I just got back from a trip to Japan and one of the things that strikes me is how darn cheap and good the food is.  Americans like to believe they are #1 in everything, so they can't accept the possibility that someone out there may have it better than them.  When it comes to food, Americans are just starting to wake up and learning how to eat.  However, Americans are still stuck on this whole status thing, especially here in the Bay Area.  I've mentioned it before, but I really think that some people just aren't happy unless they spend a lot on their food.  They really don't care about the quality of the food, just the status associated with it.  I think for an American, it is more important to brag to their friends and spend a ton of money, rather than the actual value.  How else can you explain the incredibly over priced food in the San Francisco Bay Area?  It's absolutely ridiculous, but I think that dining out in San Francisco is more expensive than Tokyo, supposedly one of the most expensive cities on earth.

Here is an example:

 

There, you see a bowl of clam soup, salmon, tuna, and horse mackerel nigiri.   How much did this cost me?  About $5.  Yes, I'm not joking, just FIVE BUCKS.  Five bucks wouldn't even buy you the plate of tuna nigiri in San Francisco.  This was at a 100 yen sushi place, where every plate costs 100 yen, or about $1.  It is considered "low end" sushi, but it completely blows away what California can offer.

Medieval Demonology - a precursor to Role Playing Games?

The other day I was surfing wikipedia and I stumbled upon one of those articles that has way more detail than necessary.  Actually, to be more precise, it is a series of articles.  A series of articles on demons.  Apparently, some guys in Medieval Europe wrote a bunch of books on the subject, and at least one of these has pretty much been transcribed onto wiki, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, printed in 1577.  I don't think this kind of stuff was religious study as it appears; I think it's the equivalent of playing Dungeons and Dragons back in the day.  I mean just look at this stuff:

The bear looks embarrassed.

Lies my teachers told me

Not really sure where this belongs, but I wanted to get this off my chest for quite some time.  I want to talk about an outright lie that my teacher told me.  A lie that, while seemingly insignificant, is a part of a larger, more systematic lie.  The lie that my teacher told me was this:

"Napoleon Bonaparte shot the nose off the sphinx in Egypt because he was racist and didn't want people to see its black African features"

For years, I believe this to be true, but thanks to the internets, I found out that it was an out right lie.  Here is a picture of the Sphinx made in 1755:

Here it is from another angle:

Notice anything?  The nose is already gone by this time and it is many years before Napoleon even got there in 1789.

Judo - a real rough and tumble martial art

Tokyo Zombie - a movie about zombies and Jujutsu

I've been studying Judo now for 9 months and I am really enjoying the workout.  I had previous martial arts experience with kung fu and hapkido, but nothing prepared me for the rough and tumble world of Judo.  I really wish I had gotten into it in my youth, because now I'm an old man and my body breaks more easily.  I was always interested in Judo because it seems that just about every modern marital arts incorporates some aspect of Judo - Russian Sambo, Israeli Krav Maga, modern MMA, etc.  There's gotta be something to it if everyone wants to incorporate it.  I finally decided to start training in Judo after watching Tokyo Zombie, which is really a love letter to Judo/Jujutsu.  I bet you're wondering why I have a that picture up there, and now you know.